First Paragraph

In early October, the first of the autumn storms began in the late afternoon, with rumbles of thunder up in Normandy somewhere, then, by nightfall, the rain reached Paris, where it beat against the windows of the gray city and streamed down the channels at the edge of the cobblestone streets. The writer Paul Ricard walked bent over in the downpour, headed up a narrow street of ancient buildings in the Sixth Arrondissement: the Rive Gauche, the Latin Quarter.

- From Under Occupation by Alan Furst